Binge And Purge

I haven't really chimed in on the Da Abu G purge of Outer Party members in the DoJ, primarily because Josh Marshall has pretty much covered every factual base worth noting. It's a real example in how and why the small furry mammals of the internets can and should have old media dinosaurs looking over their shoulders, and the TPM crew deserves a hell of a lot of credit for laying such a solid case, plank by patient plank.

Too many of these stories can get lost (for non-political junkies, anyway) in all the inside-baseball esoterica. Even many people who pay attention to current events and such may tend to subconsciously write off stories like the attorney purge as just more internecine kremlinology. TPM's coverage, I think, has helped keep the facts vital and interesting, and moving the narrative forward with considerable (and increasing) momentum.

Another reason I hadn't bothered with the story yet is that, well, it just seemed so "water is wet". This is the same administration that vetted contractors in Iraq on their views on Roe v. Wade. It would be more surprising if they hadn't tried to stuff every available orifice in the bureaucracy with outright hacks and toadies. And it would be even more surprising if all the executive privilege reasoning they bitched about during the Clenis era weren't suddenly rendered inoperable. There may have been some point in time when I posited that these people about nothing at all besides the retention of pure power, and perhaps at least hoped that I was being a tad polemical or satirical. Obviously, even being perfectly literal about such a fundamental observation anymore is a tragic understatement.

And as this thing spreads and continues to envelop the moldering carcass of this administration, it becomes clearer that the problems are systemic, that they run much deeper and throughout the operational "principles" of this gang of buffoons. Toadyism is how they've done everything all along, from energy task farces to war planning to disaster relief.

As such, they are now beyond simple damage control on this (if that were the case, they would have dumped Gonzales by now and found some other lackey to serve as a buffer for the duration) and into crisis containment mode. All that is left is to find the chain of documentation between Rove, Miers, and Gonzales. And chances are that that will abut yet another festering scandal waiting to be brought to light.

The creeping desperation was most abundantly on display in yesterday's hissy fit/press conference, in which Bush acted like he seriously thought that, at ~30% for the past 18 months, he was in any position to bully or even negotiate over any of this. The only game the guy knows is Texas Hold 'em, and it's much too late for that. His magnanimous offer of an off-the record handjob from Miers and Rove has already been tossed aside like the used spunk rag it was. There will be no constitutional showdown, podna; there will only be disclosure and retreat, and endless re-circling of wobbly wagons. Even the press has started getting up on their hind legs about this, openly challenging Phony Blow for being the sniveling, hypocritical shit he's always been.

The temper tantrums and bluffs about constitutional showdowns are no longer anything more than a sideshow. It's pathetic to watch a snotty third-grader swaggering and expecting people to believe he's Gary Cooper or something. Mister Man can smack his wittle spoon on the high chair all he wants, but after six years of insular clubbiness and incompetent nepotism, the actual adults are re-asserting themselves.